Any senior who is completing a capstone, research, thesis, or fine arts creative project this academic year is invited to prepare a poster and accompanying abstract. Students will present for visitors during the Poster Symposium event, which happens annually in April.

Students who are not seniors but are collaborating on research or capstone projects and juniors who are completing a capstone or capstone course are also welcome to participate.

The goals of the symposium are to celebrate student research and capstone projects and provide students with an opportunity to gain professional presentation skills, and network with those who connect with them.

Please check back for 2022 deadlines.

Please check back for the 2022 schedule.

Most participants use PowerPoint to design a poster, but students can use any platform, as long as the end product meets the following requirements:

Finished file format:

• JPEG
• Posters should be developed in a horizontal layout. A typical dimension for a horizontal PowerPoint poster is 48 inches wide by 36 inches tall. Keep in mind, you will not be printing these posters. They will only be viewed virtually. Please connect with your faculty supervisor for more specific feedback and expectations regarding the content you should include on your poster.

Setting poster size if using PowerPoint:

• Click the DESIGN tab on the top of the PowerPoint screen. Click on SLIDE SIZE located near the right end of the ribbon.
• Click Custom Slide Size. In the new window, under “Slides sized for,” select CUSTOM (bottom of the list).
• Enter your poster width (48 inch) and height (36 inch).
• On the right side of that same window, check that the orientation for your slide is LANDSCAPE for a horizontal poster. Click OK.
• In the new window that pops up, click on Ensure Fit.
• When done creating the poster, save it as a JPEG.

This video of How to make an academic poster in PowerPoint may be helpful. Keep in mind, you will need to save your version as a JPEG (rather than a PDF as she suggests).

You can also download a power point template.

This is how your poster will be viewed. Double click the image to expand the view.

Abstracts should be between 200-250 words. They should be saved as a separate Microsoft Word document, and are not included on the poster. Your faculty supervisor or research/project supervisor must review your abstract before you submit it on the Thursday, March 11 deadline.

Although abstracts vary somewhat by discipline, all abstracts are a succinct summary of a completed work or work in progress. An abstract condenses a larger piece of writing (a thesis, research project, performance, etc.), highlighting its major points and concisely describing the content and scope of the project. For purposes of the poster session, you will need to produce an informative abstract. Your abstract should include the following elements:

• Rationale

  Why should the reader care about the problem/issue you’ve chosen to explore? This section should focus on the importance of your work and the potential impact it might have if successful.

• Problem statement/purpose

  What problem are you trying to solve? What issue did you set out to explore? What do you hope to learn from it?

• Methodology

  How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem? What method did you use to explore you problem (sampling, experimentation, trial and error)? If you did not do a research project, make note here of any theoretical framework or methodological assumptions that underlie what you did.  If in the arts, this section should outline the media and process you used to develop your project.

• Results/findings

  What did you discover/uncover during your research? Your explanation of the significance of your results (completed, unexpected, negative, and partial) is more important than the results themselves. If your research is not completed, this section should list the expected results or outcomes.

• Conclusions/implications

  What are the implications of your findings? How does your work contribute to your field of study?  Are there implications for future work in this area?

Review your work:

• Is it complete—covering all the major parts of the project?
• Is it cohesive—flowing smoothly from start to finish?
• Is it concise—containing no unnecessary words or information?
• Is it clear—remaining readable for all your audiences, even in its abbreviated form?
• Is it correct—grammatically? Visually?
• Have your faculty advisor review your abstract and submit it as a Microsoft Word document to the Student Career Advisor via  email .

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SMALL MAMMAL SPECIES DIVERSITY AND WOODLAND JUMPING MICE

Allison M. DeRose, Emily K. Heald, and Dr. Paula S. Anich

Northland College

April 4, 2013

Abstract:  The Woodland Jumping Mouse (Napaeozapus insignis) is an old-growth boreal rodent species.  Woodland Jumping Mice play an important role in forest ecosystems because they disperse the spores of fungi that are only found on coniferous tree species.  The distribution of this species in Wisconsin and its interactions with other small mammal species are not well understood.  Prior to 2011, the Woodland Jumping Mouse was represented statewide only by 48 museum specimens.  Due to its perceived rarity, the Woodland Jumping Mouse has been listed as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. This study analyzes the influence of other small mammal species on the presence of Woodland Jumping Mice.  Over a period of 3 months in the summer of 2012, (6,600 trap-nights) we set Sherman-live traps in 14 different sites in Ashland, Bayfield, Price, and Sawyer counties within the Chequamegon National Forest.  We targeted late-succession spruce-fir and hemlock sites in order to locate populations of Woodland Jumping Mice.  We captured 7 definitive Woodland Jumping Mice, one of which was a recapture.  In addition to the target species, we captured 593 animals of 10 species.  We sexed and measured standard morphometrics (mass, total body length, ear length, tail length, hind foot length) for each animal trapped.  We looked for statistically significant relationships between the presence of Woodland Jumping Mice and small mammal species diversity using the program R.  We discovered that Woodland Jumping Mice are associated with sites that have high small mammalian species diversity.  This relationship suggests that the presence of Woodland Jumping Mice at a particular site is an indication of pristine, unfragmented wildlife habitat.

Additional resources to help you write an abstract are available at Dexter Library.

LB 2369 .R87 2006

How to write a successful science thesis: the concise guide for students /  by William E. Russey, Hans F. Ebel, Claus Bliefert.

Q 180.55 .M4 B66 1995

The craft of research / by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams.